Evaluation Task 1 (3/5): In What Ways Does your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Evaluation Task 1 (1/5)

Evaluation Task 1 (2/5)

Evaluation Task 1 (4/5)

Evaluation Task 1 (5/5)

Our CD Digipak has become very unconventional due to the way we decided to lay it out and create it. One thing that has been said to us multiple times is that the band should be featured on the front or the back of the digipak, however I tend to disagree. 

The primary reason for this is that many other digipaks in the electro swing genre do not feature their artists greatly or at all. Great examples of this are Parov Stelar's "Grandpa's Groove" and The Electro Swing Circus' "It Flew By". I feel that we using typical conventions and appropriate conventions for a digipak which represents the electro swing genre. An argument which has been brought up to challenge this, despite the evidence that it is technically correct not to use the band on the digipak is that it is an up-and-coming band; whilst this is also correct, so were many of these bands, and when they decided not to feature themselves on the cover it wasn't a huge issue. Next to this, in the group we decided that we wanted our band to be more organic rather than synthetic, as it would allow the audience and the band to focus more on the music rather than their star image, as we felt that it was completely irrelevant. Therefore, for a digipak with which we hope to keep up the aesthetic of an organic band we didn't want to include the band on it whatsoever, as they aren't as relevant. Additionally, the aesthetic of the band not wanting to be in the spotlight is reflected in the music video by them being in the background rather than in the foreground and also not really being featured on the website.

Something else that is very conventional which is reflected on almost every single digipak (presented here is "How Lonely Sits The City!" by The Ascent of Everest), is the fact that there is a track list on the back of the album. Which is why our album becomes even more unconventional than it already is, due to the fact that our tracklisting isn't on the backcover to keep up the design which I had carefully crafted. Instead, I put the track listing on the inside of the cover, which is very unconventional as this makes it more difficult for the audience to know what kind of tracks are included in the album. However, it keeps up the design of the digipak, and allows me to have the minimalistic design without a disturbance, and being more creative with the inner cover. Perhaps the design will also intrigue the audience, and the way it is designed makes it stand out from others, perhaps making people pick it up more often. I think that the location of the tracklistings could potentially be a downside to our campaign, as even though the CD Digipak cover and back might be nice, it could prove to be very difficult to sell it as most people don't know what songs are on it. However, then again, alongside the website and the music video I think that this could work as the tracklistings are also displayed elsewhere.

Even though our digipak is quite unconventional in the way it is layed out and how it compares to
other media products, one thing I included which is conventional is the fact that there is a copyright label as well as a barcode on the back cover. This example is from The 1975 album "The 1975", which provides a barcode, copyright listings, logos from the distribution and production companies, as well as the website at the very bottom. Whilst it is very conventional for us to have added the barcode and the copyright listings, as it is essential to add them due to these being sellable, we became slightly unconventional by not adding the logos of the production/distribution companies, or the website, which restricts the audience from finding out more about the band and its work. Perhaps this is something to think about when creating a digipak.